At the end of July, the Houston Astros took over first place in the AL West Division. About a week earlier, they just acquired starting pitcher Scott Kazmir from the Oakland Athletics in one of the bigger trade-deadline deals. Things were looking up for a team that finished 22 games under .500 a season ago.

The Astros maintained that lead in the AL West all the way until this past Tuesday, when a walk-off sacrifice fly by Mitch Moreland gave Texas a 6-5 victory over the visiting Astros and gave the Rangers a half-game lead in the division.

Houston has lost nine of their last 13 games overall heading into Wednesday night, with six of those defeats coming as favorite. Blindly backing the Astros in that span would have an MLB bettor down 8.2 units.